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Audio - Paul Berry Discusses being an Organic Beekeeper

Hi,

For those of you that have a 50 mins to listen to an interview, We chatted with Paul Berry an Organic Beekeeper who is also a commercial beekeeper, hear how he manages to keep his bees. Paul lives and operates bees in New Zealand and produce Honey and Mead.

We are keen to chat with other organic beekeepers around the world to motivate others that you don't need to use harsh chemicals in your hives, so if you are keen get in touch via the web site or my profile on BeeSource.

Re: Audio - Paul Berry Discusses being an Organic Beekeeper

Bees can forage for miles, up to seven in hard times. How does one control all that territory, even if it is only three, lets say; and know that the bees did not forage on a single pesticide treated area? Not using chemicals in your beekeeping operation is another thing and it sure as blazes does not equal organic honey or organic beekeeping.

Re: Audio - Paul Berry Discusses being an Organic Beekeeper

Originally Posted by Vance G

Bees can forage for miles, up to seven in hard times. How does one control all that territory, even if it is only three, lets say; and know that the bees did not forage on a single pesticide treated area? Not using chemicals in your beekeeping operation is another thing and it sure as blazes does not equal organic honey or organic beekeeping.

Hi Vance,

Cheers for the response.

I think Paul answered that question very well in the comments section of the blog post, here is his answer. Remember we are from New Zealand, so this may be different from where you keep bees.

What this means to the layman is that all Organic sites must be Audited and qualify to the Organic standards by being specific distances from council maintained roads, non organic farms and any non native vegetation within flying distance.

Every batch of our honey is also individually tested utilising a “Multi Residue” laboratory test, designed to detect residue in ppm of 250 chemical compounds and our Organic honey must pass 100% before each batch of honey receives its final Asurequality certification.

I trust this may answer your questions and additionally shed some light in what it takes to be an “Organic beekeeper” …
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Re: Audio - Paul Berry Discusses being an Organic Beekeeper

Oh I always wondered how it worked. He has to be certain distances from anything that might be sprayed.

So for purity of honey a "certified organic" beekeeper could give either better, or worse honey, than a "treatment free" beekeeper. Because the "certified organic" beekeeper does actually treat with chemicals but is at least in theory, not exposed to other sprays etc, but the "treatment free" beekeeper puts no chemicals in his hive but could have bees collecting from sources that have been sprayed.

One thing though, he does use a heckuva lot of Thymol and very regularly, it is hard to see how his honey could not be tainted with it?